brief_history_of_the_worldfandomcom-20200215-history
Crusading Age
The Crusading Age lasted from about 1095 AD until 1204 AD. It began with the call of Pope Urban II for a religiously motivated war to retake the Holy Lands. It then ended with the controversial sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, which began the slow decline of the Crusading ideal over the next century. The Crusading Age constitutes one of the most controversial chapters in the history of Western Europe and Christianity. These medieval military campaigns authorised by the Church have been endlessly analysed and reinterpreted ever since, from the romanticism of the Middle Ages and 19th-century, to the more critical interpretations during the Enlightenment and modern era. And they still seem relevant today, for this was in many ways the turning point in history where a sense of unbridgeable ideological separation hardened between the two faiths of Christianity and Islam. They also made any reconciliation of the Great Schism between Eastern and Western Christendom out of the question. The concept of a "holy war" had no tradition within Christianity up to this point. It was conceived by Pope Urban II as an expression of papal authority, and an opportunistic response to the political situation of the time: the new aggressive stance of the papacy; the relative weakness of the contemporary Western monarchs; a request for aid from the Byzantines after their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Manzikert (1071); and the disunity of the Muslim world, with fighting in the Holy Lands making the pilgrim trails more dangerous. For the Crusaders who answered the call, it was first and foremost driven by religious faith, taking up arms to win back the holiest sites in Christianity. If they were also land-hungry, quarrelsome, violent, ruthless and duplicitous, that was merely the character of the age. Yet we should not overlook the savagery of the Crusades, which to the civilised Byzantines and Muslims must have seemed like an invasion by European barbarians. The First Crusade launched in 1096 was by far the most successful, or miraculously successful if one were so inclined. Within three years the Crusaders recaptured Jerusalem, where they celebrated the triumph of the Gospel of Peace by a massacre of staggering brutality. The establishment of Catholic Crusader States however owed much to the passing phase on Islamic disunity, and the two-century struggle to hold onto the Holy Lands ultimately ended in failure. Perhaps it was always doomed to fail, once Muslim leaders recognised that the presence of the intruders could be used to unify this fragmented region, notably the West's greatest nemesis of the Crusading Age, Saladin. The Second Crusade and Third Crusade were in response to the losses of Edessa in 1144 and Jerusalem itself in 1187. Although the presence of two German emperors, two French kings, and one English king gave them greater prestige, they achieved little; if monarchs could not stop quarreling with each other and with their nobles at home, on campaign it proved next to impossible. To say that the Fourth Crusade was an infamous event is something of an understatement. Over time, relations between the supposedly allied West and Byzantines grew ever more acrimonious, to the point where to the Crusaders, Constantinople was no longer considered part of their civilisation. A sequence of economic and political events culminated in a Crusader army sacking the greatest city in Europe in 1204, and dealing an irrevocable blow to the already weakened Byzantine Empire. While the disastrous Fourth Crusade was the last major campaign, it far from discredited the Crusading ideal. Instead it legitimised the idea that any enemies of the Church were now fair game, with Crusades undertaken against pagan people and heretical sects as well as against Muslims. Meanwhile, the Crusades had a profound impact on Western civilisation: they enabled the Italian city-states to flourish with the reopening the Mediterranean to commerce; reinforced papal leadership and the connection between Western Christendom, feudalism, and militarism; and constituted a wellspring of source material for stories of heroism, chivalry, piety, and romance that underpinned the growth in medieval literature. At the same time, the Crusades also firmly established a Catholic system of indulgences, one of the catalysts of the Protestant Reformation of the early-16th-century. History Byzantine Decline and Recovery After a century-and-a-half long revival, the Byzantine Empire was once again the largest and strongest state in Europe by the end of the reign of Emperor Basil II (d. 1025). Her borders stretched from southern Italy in the west, to Armenia in the east, and as far north as the Danube River. Her armies were the finest of the day. And her capital glittered in unrivalled splendor, renowned as far way as Scandinavia, where it was simply known as The City. Yet with the death of Basil, the empire began a precipitous decline. His relatives, a brother and two nieces, succeeded to the throne until 1056, less because they were effective rulers, than because of a sense that the revival of the Empire was connected with the continuity of the Macedonian Dynasty. Under these weak rulers, the government again became dominated by the intrigues of a poisonous court and self-interested aristocratic factions: the urban aristocracy favoured expanding the bureaucracy to supply their families with lucrative offices, draining the treasury; while the provincial aristocracy sought to enlarge their own estates in defiance of the laws passed in the 10th century, undermining the theme system that was the backbone of the army. Meanwhile, new enemies appeared almost simultaneously on the northern, western, and eastern frontiers. The Pecheneg Khanates emerged north of the Danube and by the mid-11th-century their raids were a constant menace to Thrace and Macedonia. The Normans began their conquest of Byzantine southern Italy, and with the Empire's priorities were elsewhere, it was achieved with surprising ease. The new arrivals on the eastern frontier were the Seljuq Turks. With the long neglect of the Byzantine army, the nimble Seljuk cavalry seized Armenia in 1064 and Georgia in 1068; the disputed frontier regions between the Byzantine Empire and neighbours to the east for many centuries. This act of aggression prompted a response from the Emperor Romanus IV (1068-1071). It was a sign of the times that the army that confronted the Seljuks at the Battle of Manzikert (August 1071) was mainly composed of foreign mercenaries. Betrayed both by political infighting among his generals and by the desertion of a great many of the mercenaries, Romanus saw his army annihilated and was himself captured. Manzikert didn't have to become the shattering disaster that it became; Byzantine historians would often look back and lament it as the moment the decline of the Empire began. The Seljuks, distracted by war with Fatimid Egypt, could have been contained by a competent emperor. Instead the Byzantines descended into a decade of political infighting and virtual civil-war for the throne. While the incompetent usurping emperor of the moment focused on stamping out revolts, Anatolia was completely laid open to the Turks, who overran it almost as far as the Aegean Sea. In another notorious incident, Emperor Nikephoros III (1078-81) married the wife of the emperor he had just deposed, and forced her step-daughter into a convent. The girl's father, the brilliant Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard (d. 1085), immediately used this as a pretext to invade. This was the final straw for Alexios Komnenos, the ablest general of his day, who usurped the throne, forcing Nikephoros into a monastery. At the time, Alexios I (1081-1118) must have seemed to many as just another in a long line of usurpers. The Empire seemed beyond saving. The loss of Anatolia had not only robbed the Empire of much of its land, but of much of its food and military manpower as well. Yet Alexios proved one of the last brilliant Byzantine emperors. When the Byzantine army met with defeat against Robert Guiscard at the Battle of Dyrrhachium (October 1081), Alexios instead turned to intrigue, bribing several Norman nobles to revolt in southern Italy, allying with the Republic of Venice to cut-them-off by sea, and financing Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV in his efforts to drive the Norman ally Pope Gregory VII from Rome, who in the midst of the Investiture Controversy probably didn't need much encouragement. This forced the Normans to withdraw and concentrate on their defenses at home; the danger evaporated with the death of Guiscard in 1085. Venice had extracted what proved a heavy price for her support in this conflict, gaining very favourable trading privileges with the Byzantine Empire, which would ultimately lead to growing animosity between Constantinople and Venice. Meanwhile, Alexios managed to stabalise all the other frontiers of the Empire, largely through such acts of diplomacy and intrigue. He was unrivalled in his time as a stateman, time and time again inducing others to do his will, and fighting only when every other option was exhausted. Meanwhile from 1092, the Byzantines finally got some respite on their eastern frontier. Upon the death of the third Seljuk Suntan, Malik-Shah I (1072-1092), the Seljuq Empire fell into chaos, as rival successors and regional governors carved up the empire and waged war against one another. This seemed the ideal opportunity to reclaim lost Byzantine territory, but the Empire plainly could not put an effective army in the field. So, with some warming of relations with Rome, Alexios wrote a faithful letter to Pope Urban II appealing for Western support. What he undoubtedly expected was some mercenaries that he could control. What he got was the First Crusaders. First Crusade At this time, Western Christendom was in the midst of the protracted medieval power struggle between Church and state, that had begun with the Investiture Controversy against the German emperor, and would continue in England and France. In Alexios' call for aid, Pope Urban II (1088-99) saw the perfect opportunity to reaffirm the primacy of papal power, and united all of Western Europe under papal authority in a holy war for Christianity. He called a great council of the Church to meet at Clermont, and there in the first days of November 1095, he delivered what was undoubtedly the single most effective speech in medieval Europe. There was no mention of Alexios, the object was not the defense of Constantinople. Instead, he summoned a righteous war to free their fellow Christians in the east from the tyranny of Muslim infidels and to recover the holy city of Jerusalem. In truth, although Jerusalem was within the Islamic world, Muslims showed a remarkable tolerance for Christians, who were able to play a full role in the community; far more so than Muslims and Jews could in Christendom. Pilgrims had long been free to visit Jerusalem, and indeed were encouraged since it benefited the local economy. However, fighting between the Seljuks and Fatimids in the region had made the pilgrim trails more dangerous in recent years. Urban's appeal was met with a more enthusiastic response than even he could have hoped. Many great feudal lords of France, Normandy, Flanders and Italy pledged themselves to the First Crusade (1095–99) on the spot. Soon it seemed that entire nations were on the move as Crusading fever swept Europe. Although Western Europe remained something of a backward in terms of learning and culture when compared to other civilisations, it had become a potent military power by the 11th-century, as a few thousand Norman knights had clearly demonstrates in Muslim Sicily. The religious fervour ignited violence even before the Crusaders left Europe, particularly against local Jewish communities, with several horrible massacres, at Speyer, Worms and Mainz in particular. The Crusading knights would in time gain a reputation for rapacious greed and brutality. They did this with clear consciences because their opponents were infidels. "Christians are right, pagans are wrong", said the Song of Roland and that probably sums up well enough the average Crusader’s response to any qualms about what he was doing. Nevertheless, it should also be remembered that many of them would paupered themselves in order to fight for their faith. Almost incidentally, much of this wealth would end up in the hands of the Church, buying feudal estates for a fraction of their actual value. Urban had targeted mostly French nobles, and had wanted a well-disciplined body of knights under control of a Papal legate. However, the flower of European chivalry were not the first to undertake the arduous journey towards the Holy Lands. Contrary to the Pope's wishes, charismatic itinerant preachers stirred-up an almost hysterical enthusiasm among the peasantry, notable among them Peter the Hermit (d. 1115). After having caused considerable disorder in Hungary and Bulgaria, the People's Crusade '''(1096), a vast shambling army of some 40,000 peasants and petty nobles, arrived at the gates of Constantinople in August 1996. Ignoring the advice of the appalled Emperor Alexios to wait for the official Crusade, they were ferried across the Hellespont to Anatolia. Unsurprisingly this undisciplined rabble was soon ambushed and all but annihilated by the Seljuk Turks; just 3,000 survivors including Peter the Hermit himself returned to Byzantine territory to await the main Crusader army. Pope Urban appointed Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy (d. 1098) as papal legate and overall leader of the official component of the First Crusade. It consisted of four main armies: the German contingent led by Godfrey of Bouillon (d. 1100); the southern French contingent under Raymond of Toulouse (d. 1105); the northern French contingent of Hugh of Vermandois (d. 1101); and the Italian Norman contingent under Bohemond of Taranto (1111). Organised by August 1096, they left for Constantinople in several waves. Early 1097 would see almost 60,000 soldiers pass through Constantinople, with a steady stream of stragglers in the months that followed. The arrival of the Norman Bohemond was especially controversial, as the son of Robert Guiscard and the ruler of former Byzantine southern Italy. This would have been daunting task for any ruler, but Emperor Alexios handled the situation with shrewd diplomacy; the Byzantines would not be so fortunate on future Crusades. Before the armies were ferried to Anatolia, their leaders were obliged to swear an oath that any conquered territory, that had belonged to the Empire before the Turkish invasions, would be restored to the Byzantines. Most swore the oath only with great reluctance. Alexios probably had no illusions that the Crusaders keep to their word, but he had done what he could, and now could only sit back and watch what developed. The Muslim Turks at first paid this new army little heed, assuming it could be dealt with as easily as the rabble led by Peter the Hermit. The Crusader’s first objective was '''Nicaea, the capital of the Turkish Sultanate of Rum, which was besieged in May 1097. After five week and a failed Muslim attempt to relieve the city, the citizens agreed to surrender when Emperor Alexios himself arrived with a Byzantine force, denying the Crusaders the opportunity to sack and loot the city. Although the emperor ensured that the Crusaders were well-paid for their efforts, they began to grumble openly and the already strained relations began to sour. Ignoring Alexios' advice to proceed along the southern coast so they could be resupplied, the Crusaders crossed the arid and mountainous interior of Anatolia towards Antioch. Five days after leaving Nicaea, near Dorylaeum, the local Sultan ambushed the advance column of the Crusader army. However, the knights deployed in a tight-knit defensive formation, and withstood a five hour onslaught, until the rest of the army arrived and routed the Turks. Afterwards, the Turks avoided pitched battles, instead resorting to guerilla and scorched-earth tactics, making the journey across Anatolia in the height of summer a desperate test of endurance. Even before they reached Antioch, the first Crusader knight, a morally flexible Norman called Baldwin of Boulogne, had peeled off from the rest to involve himself in Armenian politics and carve-out for himself a fiefdom in Edessa; the first Crusader State. Parched and exhausted, the Crusader armies arrived at Antioch in October 1097, and began the gruelling siege of the great city, which would dragged-on for seven-month through a bitterly cold Syrian winter. Virtually unassailable, the Crusaders hoped to starve the city into submission, but lacked the troops to fully surround the city, which remained partially resupplied throughout. Fortunately, the Muslims world was so bitterly divided that efforts lift the siege came sporadically and with their own agendas; two major relief forces were driven-off. Spring brought the threat of a third relief force under the Sultan of Mosul. The situation seemed so hopeless that one of the leaders of the Crusades, Stephen of Blois, abandoned the siege. On his way home, Stephen met Emperor Alexius, who was marching at the head of Byzantine army of reinforcements, and persuaded him to turn-back to Constantinople. The emperor’s decision to turn back actually reinvigorated the Crusader army, for enraged that the emperor had seemingly abandoned them to their fate, they considered themselves released from their oaths. They could now claim for themselves the great city of Antioch, once the third city of the Roman Empire and still one of the five great bishoprics of Christendom. In early-June 1098, a disaffected Armenian guard within the city allowed the Crusaders to scale the walls and open the gates. The Latin Christians poured into the city and a massacre ensued; unable to tell them apart, thousands of Christian civilians were killed along with Muslims. The victory however was incomplete. Just days later, the army of the Sultan of Mosul arrived, and the former besiegers became the besieged, in a city already short of food. At this point, the Crusader found themselve the beneficiaries of what could be described, if one were so inclined, as a miracle. The relic of the Holy Lance ''was supposedly found within the city; the lance that had pierced the side of Jesus as he hung on the cross. There was a profusion of such relics throughout Europe; in fact Constantinople and Rome had relics both claiming to be the ''Holy Lance. Although many were skeptical, there's no question that the miraculous discovery boosted morale in the city. In late June, the Crusaders stormed out of the city gate, carrying the Holy Lance before them, and routed the Muslims in a pitched battle outside the city walls. With the city secure, the Crusaders remained in Antioch for almost a year, subduing the surrounding region for supplies of food and horses, but mainly squabbling over who would claim Antioch. During this time, plague broke out in the city, killing many among the army, including Bishop Adhemar, the papal legate and nominal overall leader. The Bishop had been a wise counselor and a stabilising influence whom the leaders could ill-afford to lose. Finally, in January 1099, the march towards Jerusalem restarted led by Raymond of Toulouse, leaving Bohemond of Taranto behind as the first prince of the Crusader State of Antioch. Proceeding down the Mediterranean coast, within Fatamid territory rather than Seljuk, the Crusader army was met by little resistance, with their barbarous and brutal reputation preceding them. Finally in early June, after three long years, they reached their ultimate goal, Jerusalem. Reduced by now to perhaps 15,000 soldiers, too few to besiege the city, the Crusaders had little choice but to take the city by direct assault. Prior to the assault, the entire army marched barefoot in solemn procession around the city, and thence to the Mount of Olives, where Peter the Hermit preached with his usual eloquence. After five weeks, a final push was launched against both the south gate and north wall of the city, and on 15 July 1099 Godfrey’s men took a sector of the walls. When the nearest gate was opened, the Crusaders stormed the great city. The massacre that followed the capture of Jerusalem has attained particular notoriety, as a "juxtaposition of extreme violence and anguished faith". Thousands of the inhabitants - Muslims, Jews, men, women, and children - were slaughtered in a most unchristian bloodbath. Those who sought refuge in their mosques or synagogue, were burned alive. The eyewitness accounts from the Crusaders themselves leave little doubt that there was great slaughter, with one describing the scene as the "just and wonderful Judgement of God". The staggering and improbable success of the First Crusade was for medieval men and women a sign of God's favour, that would sustain centuries of Crusading. Crusader States With recovery of Jerusalem, attention turned to a problem of at least equal concern to many of the Crusaders; how to establish feudal domains in the conquered territories. Since Raymond and Bohemond were bitter rivals, the nobles settled on Godfrey as ruler of Jerusalem. His brother Baldwin kept Edessa, just as Bohemond was left Antioch, while Raymond became the ruler of Tripoli. Hereditary fiefs of land were distributed to other nobles and their followers in due degree. The administration evolved over the next decade, until Jerusalem was established as a kingdom, to whom the other three rulers owed allegiance. The Crusader States (1098-1291) would show impressive staying power considering their precarious position surrounded by Muslim lands. The region was quickly dotted with some of the most impressive castles in Christendom, including the magnificent Krak des Chevaliers built between 1140 and '70. They also profited from the fact that Jerusalem had been seized from Fatimid Egypt (Shia) in a region dominated by Sunnis, and from the bitter rivalries among their Muslim neighbours. Thus the Crusader States seemed to settle-down as just one more power among many in an unsettled region. They formed a continuous strip along the Eastern Mediterranean, with the coastal towns benefiting from increased trade as ships from Venice and Genoa arrived with supplies, reinforcements and pilgrims. Ships returned home with a cargo of long-forgotten Eastern goods for the markets of Western Europe. Enabling pilgrims to reach the holy sites of Palestine had been one of the main purposes of the First Crusade, thus their protection from illness and attack was seen as an important task. These duties prompted the founding of orders of knighthood, the most famous being the Knights Hospitaller, the Knights Templar, and the Teutonic Knights. The Knights Hospitaller, or hospital of St John of Jerusalem, was older than the Crusades, founded in 1023 by Italian merchants from Amalfi to look after sick pilgrims in Jerusalem. Crusader knights, grateful to have their wounds healed or illnesses cured, devoted themselves to the hospital's cause. In 1113 the hospital was taken under papal protection, becoming a religious order that knights could join, provided they committed themselves to chastity, to good works, and to warfare for the Christian cause. The order continued to operate from Malta until Napoleon captured it in 1798. The Knights Templar were founded in 1120 by a group of Crusading knights, distressed at the plight of pilgrims set upon by marauding Muslims, and dedicated themselves to their protection. These knights wore the famous white surcoat with a red cross, and a white mantle also with a red cross. They pledged obedience to the patriarch of Jerusalem, and were given quarters in the part of Jerusalem once occupied by the Jewish Temple, thus acquiring their official name; Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. Estates were bequeathed to them by rich admirers all over Europe, and they eventually gained an extra role as bankers to noblemen with reputation for honesty. In 1312, Philip IV of France, with an avaricious eye on their wealth and the Pope in his pocked, destroy the great order of the Knights Templars on dubious charges of heresy. The Teutonic Knights were founded in 1198 by the German contingent in Palestine, but from as early as 1211, they divert their energies to a different Crusade; against remaining pagans on the eastern borders of Germany. Second Crusade One exception to the surprising mood of tolerance towards the Crusader State was the Seljuk ruler of Mosul, Imad ad-Din Zengi (d. 1146). Ambitious and expansionist, Zengi seized Aleppo in 1128, making him well placed to threaten neighbouring Edessa, by far the weakest and most exposed of the Crusader States, jutting out into Syria. Recognizing that the presence of the intruders could be used to unify the Muslims of this fragmented region under his own leadership, he urged a Jihad or holy war against the Christians. When Zengi's troops moved in and captured Edessa in 1144, the Muslims world began to discover a new sense of purpose. News of the fall of Edessa stunned Europe, and Pope Eugenius III (1145-53) immediately issued a formal papal bull calling for another Crusade. It was the first of its kind, with precisely worded provisions to protect the families and property of the Crusader States, and the innovation of granting indulgences; a means of redemption from purgatory. The Second Crusade (1147-50) would have much more prestigious leadership than the First Crusade, two of Europe’s greatest rulers, King Louis VII of France (1138-80) and King Conrad III of imperial Germany (1138-52). Nevertheless, the expedition was on all fronts a disaster. If the kings found it difficult to control their nobles at home, on campaign it proved next to impossible. Even before reaching the Holy Lands, the Byzantine city of Philippopolis was burnt to the ground, supposedly when a snake charmer was accused of sorcery. The Germans contingent some 20,000 strong crossed into Anatolia in September 1147. Again ignoring the Byzantine emperor's advice to proceed along the southern coast, Conrad's army was virtually annihilated by the Seljuks in October near Dorylaeum, not far from where the First Crusaders won their victory. Conrad and a few survivors retreated to Byzantine territory, and eventually eventually reached Acre by ship. The French contingent followed a similar route with similar results, making it about half way to Antioch, before the constant raids of the Turks prompted the king and the wealthier knights to sail to Jerusalem instead; the fate of the poorer knights who could not afford the trip remains ominously unclear. Finally reaching Jerusalem in June 1148, the two kings decided after considerable debate to attack the great city of Damascus. How the decision was reached is not known. The rich city of Damascus was undoubtedly a tempting prize, but also one of the most well-disposed Muslim rulers towards the Crusader States, fearful of the expanding power of Mosul. The Crusader siege of Damascus lasted just four days, during which Conrad and Louis fell to quarrelling, until Nur ad-Din of Mosul (d. 1174), the son of Zengi, arrived to drive them off. With that, the Second Crusade was abandoned. The loss of face for the French and German kings was considerable, but more significant damage had been done to the Crusaders' cause. The Byzantine Empire were unjustly blamed for the calamities in Anatolia, further straining the already mutual distrust between the supposed allies. The Muslims, on the other hand, were enormously encouraged, having confronted a Crusader army and triumphed. And after the siege of Damascus, Muslim tolerance of the Crusader States was at an end. The next two decades would see the rise of the West's greatest nemesis of the Crusading Age, Saladin. Rise of Saladin In 1154, Nur ad-Din of Mosul (1146-74) arrived outside the walls of Damascus. After a brief siege, the inhabitants open the gates to his army, and evicted the ruling dynasty; one more step in the encirclement of the Crusader States by a single Muslim power. Then in the 1160s, a succession crisis saw Fatimid Egypt (Shi'a) descend into civil war. What followed was a complex, multi-phase struggle for influence in Egypt between Nur ad-Din, the Crusaders, and the Fatimids. Nur ad-Din sent his ablest general, Shirkuh (d. 1169), to invade Egypt three times, along with his young nephew Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (d. 1193), known to history as Saladin. The first time in 1063, was in support of one of two rivals as Fatimid Sultan. The effort was successful, with Nur ad-Din at the same time preventing the Crusaders from interfering, by threatening an important fortress near Antioch and winning a crushing victory at the Battle of Harim (1164). The second time in 1167, was an attempt to oust the same Fatimid Sultan, who had proven less amenable than hoped. This time Shirkuh and Saladin failed, with the Sultan allying with the Crusaders in order to force them to withdraw. The final time in 1168, was in response to an invasion of Egypt, this time by the Crusaders. The turning point came in October 1168, when the Crusaders took the city of Bilbeis. It was followed by yet another horrific massacre of the civilian inhabitants, that had the effect of uniting all Egypt against the invading Latin Christians. The Crusaders soon found their position untenable and withdrew. In January 1169, Shirkuh was able to enter Cairo without a fight and have the untrustworthy Sultan executed. Shirkuh became Sultan under a Fatimid Caliph, although he himself died in March, and was succeeded by his nephew Saladin. Few would have expected Saladin to remain in power for very long. A foreign Sunni ruler of a Shi'a dominated country, far from home with a relatively small army. A man with little experience of governing, especially a country devastated by a decade of turmoil. Yet Saladin seemed to have a natural instinct for leadership. An able administrator, he gradually gaining a reputation as a generous and virtuous but firm ruler, devoid of pretense and cruelty. He surrounded himself with trusted family members, but also kept most of the existing Egyptian bureaucracy and advisers in place. In October 1169, the Crusaders decided to test the young Sultan by invading Egypt for a fourth time, with Byzantine naval support. However, the siege of the port-city Damietta was a debacle, abandoned after just three months. This military success seemed to smoothed any differences between the Sunni and Shi'a populations of Egypt. When the Fatimid Caliph died in 1171, the Fatimid Dynasty died with him. Though nominally acting on behalf of Nur ad-Din, thirty-three-year-old Saladin was now in effect the ruler of Egypt. in 1174, Nur ad-Din died and was succeeded by his 11-year-old son. Saladin’s every act had been inspired by an intense and unwavering devotion to the idea of jihad. Considering this child unable to uphold the holy war against the Crusaders, he marched on Damascus where he was welcomed into the city, and acclaimed Sultan, establishing the Ayyubid Dynasty (1171-1260). As essentially a usurper, from 1174 until '86, he zealously pursued the goal of uniting all the Muslim territories from Syria to Egypt. This he accomplished by skillful diplomacy, backed when necessary by swift and ruthless military force. Now, for the first time, the entire Muslim world surrounding the Crusader States was now united in a holy cause. Nevertheless, relations between Saladin and the Christian enclaves were cordial throughout this time, with trade continuing and Muslim pilgrims allowed to visit Jerusalem. It was disunity among the Crusaders that ultimately provided the pretext for war. During the 25 years following the Second Crusade, the kingdom of Jerusalem was governed by two of her ablest rulers, Baldwin III (1143–62) and Amalric I (1163–74). However during the subsequent reigns of Baldwin IV (1174-85), the famous Leper King, and eight-year-old Baldwin V (1185-86), rivalries within the regency simmered and then erupted into virtual civil war on the boy's death. In the chaos, a nobleman called Raynald of Châtillon (d. 1187) found it impossible to resist the temptation to attack and plunder a rich Muslim caravan making its way from Egypt to Damascus, in violation of the terms of a truce agreed with Saladin. As if to aggravate the offence, Raynald refused to pay a compensation; the famous story that Saladin's sister was travelling with the caravan is almost certainly untrue. In May 1187, Saladin crossed the Jordan River, throwing his full strength against the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He was aided by a phenomenal lack of military good sense on the part of his enemy. Against the advise of many, King Guy of Jerusalem (1186–92) depleted all the garrisons of the realm in order to muster forces to meet Saladin in battle in the desert at Hattin. After an exhausting day’s march, the Crusaders spent a terrible night short of water and constantly harassed by the Muslims; Saladin's army by contrast had a caravan of camels bringing water up from the Sea of Galilee. The following day the exhausted and thirst-crazed army faced Saladin’s forces at the Horns of Ḥaṭṭin (July 1187), and were virtually annihilated. In this one battle, the capability to wage offensive war of the Crusaders States was destroyed. In the aftermath of the battle, King Guy of Jerusalem, Raynald of Châtillon, and the other nobles were formally received by Saladin in his tent. Guy was offered a goblet of water, who drank eagerly, and handed the goblet to Raynald. But Raynald had not received the goblet from Saladin, thus was not under his hosts protection according to Muslim custom. Saladin beheaded Raynald on the spot. The king and the others were treated honourably, and most were later ransomed. Saladin spent the next three months securing Crusader fortresses in Palestine and on the coast: Acre and Gaza capitulate almost immediately; and Jaffa and Ascalon were besieged and taken. Only the port city of Tyre, an almost impregnable coastal fortress, held out against him. But Saladin’s crowning achievement and the most disastrous blow to the whole Crusading movement came on 2 October 1187. After a two week siege Jerusalem itself surrendered. Saladin's lasting reputation among Christians, as a man of chivalry and honour, derives above all from his treatment of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. In stark contrast to the Crusaders capture of the great city eighy-eight year before, there was no massacre, no destruction, and no looting. A ransom had to be paid for each Christian to depart in freedom, but it was not high. In contrast, the Christian authorities set an appalling example to the very end. The archbishop of Jerusalem departed with wagon-loads of valuable treasures, rather than free fellow Christians who couldn’t afford the ransom. Thus by 1189, the Crusader States were reduced to the cities of Tyre, Tripoli and Antioch, and a few outposts. Third Crusade The news of the disaster in the Holy Land, caused Pope Urban III (1185-87) to die of shock, it was said. His successor Pope Gregory VIII (1187) immediately preached the Third Crusade '(1189–92). Again the stakes were raised. Instead of the two kings who had led the Second Crusade, this time there were three: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (d. 1122), King Richard the Lionheart of England (d. 1199), and King Philip II of France (d. 1223). Frederick set out first in May 1189, with the largest Crusader army so far assembled, about 100,000 in all. Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos (1185-95) could hardly have handled the situation worse. Having signed a secret treaty with Saladin, he actually tried to impede Frederick’s progress through Byzantine territory. The formidable Barbarossa was not amused, occupying the city of Philippopolis until Isaac capitulated, and transport the Germans into Anatolia. However, the Germans never reached the Holy Lands. When crossing a river in eastern Anatolia, the emperor slipped from his horse and drowned. With his death, his massive army aimlessly drifted back to imperial Germany. To Saladin and the Muslims, Frederick’s death seemed an act of God. Meanwhile, the English and French contingent of the Thirst Crusade, some 35,000 strong, arrived by sea at Tyre in 1189, the last holdout port in Palestine. The two kings were very different people. Richard had no particular talent for administration, but was a genius in war; he had already seized Cyprus on his journey. Philip II was no warrior himself but quite adept at siegecraft, but a talented and unscrupulous politician. They immediately joined the prolonged siege of the Muslim held port of Acre, which was already in its eighteenth month; Saladin had been in the north preparing for the expected arrival of a massive German army. The exhausted Muslims defenders of Acre surrendered a month later. With this symbolic victory achieved, King Philip returned home to continue his brilliant reign in France, using this opportunity to prey upon Richard’s continental lands. Saladin tried to negotiate with Richard for the release of the Muslim's captured at Acre, but Richard thought he was delaying too much, and had some 2,700 prisoners decapitated in full view of Saladin's army; Saladin responded by killing the same number of Christian prisoners. For the next twelve months, Richard and Saladin tested each others strength by military and diplomatic means. There was only one significant pitched battle at Arsuf (September 1191). Richard’s military brilliance won the day, forcing Saladin to retreat with heavy losses. Although they never met in person, there was warm cordiality and considerable mutual respect between Richard and Saladin; when Richard became ill, Saladin sent his own doctor. Yet it eventually became clear that even if Richard could take Jerusalem, he could never hold a city so far from naval support. In the end, a truce was made in 1192. The Crusaders were allowed to retain a thin strip of territory along the coast from Acre to Jaffa, as well as Cyprus; the cities of Antioch and Tripoli were also retained. Christian pilgrims were also assured free access to all the holy places of Palestine, something that had been Saladin’s policy even before the Third Crusade. With this much accomplished, Richard set-off on his long and disastrous journey home to England. A storm drove his ship ashore near Venice, and he opted to continue his journey overland in disguise. However, he was recognised in Vienna, and fell into the hands of Leopold V of Austria (d. 1194), who had not forgotten a slight by Richard at Acre. He was then handed over to Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI (d. 1197). In Europe's great game of feudal politics, Richard had often supported opponents of the German emperor, and he was held captive at various imperial castles for a year. According to a famous legend, an English minstrel called Blondel went from castle to castle in Germany singing a song he had composed with the king, desperately searching for Richard. He was eventually released, in return for a colossal ransom and an embarrassing oath of loyalty as the emperor's supposed vassal. That such a ransom could be raised is striking proof of the prosperity of England at this time, though in raising it the seeds were sown for the troubled reign of King John (d. 1216) that would culminate in Magna Carta. Western and Byzantine Tensions For the Byzantine Empire, the Crusades had at least eased the pressure on her eastern frontier. The successful reign of Alexios I (d. 1118), was built upon by his son and grandson, leading to a partial recovery of Byzantine power and prestige, from the nadir of the Battle of Manzikert (1071). There was another major Byzantine defeat against the Turks at the Battle of Myriokephalon (1176) during the reign of the grandson, Manuel I (1143-80), but the losses were quickly recovered. The only troubling cloud on the horizon for the Byzantines was her relations with the West. From a Western perspective, Constantinople was viewed with deep distrust for a host of reasons both real and imagined, epitomised by a French chronicler of the Second Crusade who described it as, “''arrogant in her wealth, treacherous in her practices, corrupt in her faith”. These views became widespread though what passed for news in the Western Europe, which was heavily romanticised and prone to reinforce existing prejudices; the Byzantines were invariably portrayed as effeminate and ultimately no match for the virtuous and manly Latins. Most of our knowledge of the Crusading Age in fact come from Byzantine, Islamic and Jewish sources, because those of the West are so unreliable. From a Byzantine perspective, the Empire's recovery was far from complete, and she increasingly became just one among a number of Christian principalities, whcich was something the Byzantine people found hard to accept; they still considering the West as little more than Barbarian Kingdom. The greatest source of antagonism was the Republic of Venice. For Venice, and the other Italian Maritime Republics of Genoa, and Pisa, the Crusades and the Crusader States had increased their fortunes greatly, through taking advantage of the trading opportunities that resulted for the wars. Venice and Genoa were most directly involved, providing transport and naval support to the Crusader armies, for which they extracted trading concessions and colonies, as well as money. Their ships arrived in the Crusader States with supplies, reinforcements and pilgrims, and returned home with a cargo of long-forgotten Eastern goods for the markets of Western Europe. At the same time as their port served as the launching pad to wrestle the Holy Land from Muslim control, through skillful diplomacy they successfully claimed neutrality, continuing to trade freely with Muslim leaders from Syria to Spain. While Pisa was less directly involved in the Crusades, she still benefited from a freer-hand to establish a dominant position in the Western Mediterranean. As the Maritime Republics prospered, so too did the inland city-states especially as Florence and Milan. Their strength and confidence was demonstrated in 1176, when the northern cities united to drive-off an invasion by Holy Roman Emperor Barbarossa (d. 1190), who sought to end their independence. Of the three Italian Maritime Republics, Venice was the most powerful in the 12th-century. She had established the world’s first assembly lines, a network of shipyards and armories called Arsenal the capable of turning out a warship a day. Meanwhile in return for aiding the Byzantine Emperor Alexios militarily against the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard, the Venetians had demanded a heavy price, gaining very favourable trading privileges with the Empire. They made good use of these privileges, gradually establishing a virtual stranglehold on commerce within the Empire, which became a source of growing animosity between Constantinople and Venice as native Byzantine merchants was increasingly choked-off. Emperor Manuel tried to curb the perceived arrogance of Venice by making trading agreements with her rivals, Genoa and Pisa. When commercial rivalry between Venice and Genoa boiled over into a minor violent clash in 1171, the emperor went further, confiscating the goods of every Venetian merchant in the Empire. Manuel’s personal relations with the Crusaders and with other Latins remained cordial to the end; both his wives were Westerners. Most of the people of Constantinople found this distasteful, and on his death would take matters into their own hands, to the ruination of the Empire. Manuel was succeeded by his eleven year old son Alexios II (1180-83), under the regency of his mother Maria of Antioch (d. 1182). When she took steps to restored the Venetians to their preferential position, again choking-off native Byzantine trade, a wave of anti-Western riots swept through Constantinople. In 1183, a cousin, Andronikos I (1183-85), took advantage of the disorder to usurp the throne. His reign was one of those utter disasters all to familiar in Byzantine history. He had all the brilliance of his family but none of the restraints. The Venetian problems was as bad as ever, and he solved it by massacring every Italian to be found in Constantinople, further worsening the image of the Byzantines in the West, and earning the eternal animosity of Venice. His next order of business was to attack corruption, rooting out bribery and extortion, and executing hundreds of offenders regardless of their rank. While his laws were severe but just, it resulted in plot after plot to overthrown him. Before long the emperor was seeing enemies in every shadow, and Constantinople was plunged into an orgy of blood and suspicion. With the provinces going into open revolt and every man living in fear that he might be executed next, the population eventually had enough. When Andronikos moved to arrest his cousin Isaac Angelos, he made an appeal to the populace, and they responded storming the palace and murdering the emperor. While Andronikos had few redeeming virtues, his successors had none. Isaac II Angelos (1185-95) spent recklessly, financed through new oppressive taxes, and turning provincial revolts into the disintegration of the empire: Serbia, Bulgaria, and Cypus all declared their independence. Matters were not made easier by the arrival of the Third Crusade, which Isaac could hardly have handled worse, confirming the West's already deep suspicions of Greek duplicity. Isaac was eventually usurped by his brother Alexios III Angelos (1195–1203), who if anything was even worse, continuing to live a lavish lifestyle, while the Turks again overran the eastern frontiers, and the army was neglected to the point of uselessness. Meanwhile, Isaac's son Alexios somehow escaped from prison and made his way to Western Europe to seek help in overthrowing his uncle. He found it in the most unlikely place, the Fourth Crusade. Fourth Crusade To say that the '''Fourth Crusade (1202-04) is an infamous event is an understatement. The historian Steven Runciman (d. 2000) wrote: “''There was never a greater crime against humanity than the Fourth Crusade.” Eight hundred years later in 2001, Pope John Paul II (d. 2005) issued a formal apology on behalf of the Catholic Church. The election of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) reignited Crusading zeal across Christendom. Young and dynamic, the new pope worked tirelessly to put the papacy at the forefront of medieval politics, taking advantage of the complicated situation in Europe at the time: in Germany, with the death of Henry VI (d. 1197), the Holy Roman Empire went into severe decline; and Richard the Lionheart of England (d. 1199) was busy waging war with King Philip II of France (d. 1223). Just six month into his papacy, Pope Innocent called on the Christians of Europe to unite to retake the Holy Land. In this Crusade, the system of indulgences was further enhanced by the establishment of donation chest throughout Christendom; now the redemption of sin could be bought. With many European kingdoms absorbed in their own affairs, there would be no high nobles leading the Fourth Crusade. Instead the most prominent members tended to be from noble families that already had connections in the East, thus self-interest had a prominent role from the start. It was decided that the Crusaders would journey to their destination in a great fleet from Venice, a rather expensive option that even the kings of England and France had struggled to afford during the Third Crusade. Their intended destination was not in fact the Holy Land, but Egypt, the richest and believed to be the most vulnerable part of Saladin's empire; this was not widely advertised. The leader of Venice, the wily Doge Enrico Dandolo (d. 1205), drove a very hard bargain: the city would provide ships for 33,000 Crusaders, and provisions for the year long expedition; and in return they would pay an immense sum of money, and cede to Venice half of any lands conquered. It is somewhat questionable whether the Venetians ever had any intention of ferrying the Crusaders to Egypt, for they had had excellent trading relations with the Egyptians, and the Doge was well-known as a master of secret diplomacy. Doge Enrico Dandolo was a remarkable man; in his mid-80s and completely blind, he had boundless energy and cunning. Tthe hard facts of commerce were soon playing into his hands. When the Crusading army assembled in Venice in May 1202, the expected numbers proved wildly over-optimistic; there were just 12,000 men and nowhere near enough money to pay the Venetians. While the Crusaders pondered returning home in debt and disgrace, Doge Dandolo proposed a solution. The Venetians agreed to defer the debt, if the Crusaders would do them a small favour on the journey to "Egypt". Venice wanted to reclaim control of the port-city of Zara, on the eastern Adriatic, recently lost to Hungary; a crucial source of lumber for Venetian shipbuilders. With few options, the Crusaders agreed and succeeded in taking this Roman Catholic city for the Venetian in November 1202. Pope Innocent was horrified by this detour, and briefly excommunicated the army; he soon granted them absolution, reluctant to jeopardise the Crusade. While the Crusaders over-wintered in Zara, the Venetian Doge opened secret negotiations with Alexios, the son of Isaac II Angelos, the recently usurped Byzantine Emperor. Alexios had another proposal to put to the indebted Crusaders: if they would place him on the imperial throne in Constantinople, he would pay all that they owed to Venice and place the Eastern Orthodox Church under the authority of the Pope. The idea had now gained ground in the West that a number of problems would be solve by the conquest of Constantinople; Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI (d. 1197) had given the idea serious consideration before his death. The leaders of the Crusade were keen to accept, but the rank-and-file were harder to persuade. A considerable number deserted, but many had little option; returning overland from a city recently seized from the Hungarians was an unattractive prospect. Doge Dandolo was a particularly fierce supporter of the plan, smoothly seducing many with the prospect of rich rewards, although he undoubtedly knew there was little hope of Alexios delivering on him promises. The Crusaders sought the approval of the Pope Innocent, who hedged, issuing a vague order against any more attacks on Christians but decidedly failing to prohibited the diversion to Constantinople; perhaps envisioning himself as the man who ended the Great Schism. Constantinople was caught completely by surprise in June 1203 when a massive fleet of Venetian ships sailed up to the imperial harbour, only blocked by the great chain stretched across its mouth. A successful attack on the tower anchoring the chain, then bought the Crusaders the harbour itself. With the much lower harbour walls now under attack, the people of Constantinople turned on Emperor Alexios III Angelos, who fled the city into exile. Thus in August 1203, the Byzantine prince was elevated to the throne as Alexios IV (1203-04) along with his blind father. With this achieved, the Fourth Crusade should have been able to continue on its way. However almost inevitably Alexios, who owed his throne to the Latins, became bitterly unpopular and found it impossible to raise the money for the Venetians, even after emptying the treasury and striping the churches of the city of their valuable. For six months, resentment growing within the city was matched by the increasing impatience of the Crusaders outside. The mob in Constantinople broke the deadlock in January 1204, murdering Alexios. In April, Doge Dandolo finally persuaded the Crusaders that the only way to get their promised rewards was by conquering Constantinople. Although Pope Innocent III this time insisted that they should not attack, the papal letter was suppressed by the leadership. The people of Constantinople put-up a spirited defence, but on 12 April 1204 the greatest city in Europe, outside perhaps Muslim Cordoba, fell to the Crusaders and Venetians. For three horrible days they carried out an orgy of destruction reminiscent of the Vandal sack of Rome in 455, smashing and looting, raping and murdering. One breathless eyewitness estimated that two-thirds of all the wealth of the world had been in the city, and another reported: “''there were more buildings burned to the ground than there are to be found in the three greatest cities of the Kingdom of France.” The Venetians largely looted rather than destroyed; St Mark's Basilica in Venice is still graced today with many of the treasures brought back in 1204, including the famous four great bronze horses outside. The Fourth Crusade never reached the Holy Land or Egypt, instead they set-up a new Crusader State on the ruins of Constantinople. When Pope Innocent III heard of the conduct of the Crusaders he sent them a stinging rebuke. There seems little doubt that his rebuke was genuine, though it didn’t stop him later accepting piles of stolen loot offered by the penitent Crusaders. Yet somehow the Byzantine Empire survived in exile, based in the cities of Nicaea and Epirus. Sixty years later it managed to recapture Constantinople, and put the pathetic Crusader State out of its misery. But the heart had gone out of the Byzantines, though their civilisation still had two centuries in which to die. Later Crusades While the disastrous Fourth Crusade was the last major campaign sanctioned by the Catholic Church, it far from discredited the Crusading ideal. Instead it legitimised the idea that Crusading didn't have to be about the Holy Lands, that any enemy of the Church was fair game. The Northern Crusades (1147-1290) were a series of campaigns against the pagan peoples around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, as well as on the eastern borders of Germany; the most notable were the Livonian and Prussian campaign involving the Teutonic Knights. Heretical branches of Christianity were also targeted, most famously in the Albigensian Crusade (1209-29) against the Cathar Christian sects of southern France, centred in the cities of Albi and Toulouse; Catharm survived as an underground movement until the 14th century. Another example was the Bosnian Crusade (1235-1241) against the independent Bosnian Church, caught in the "no-man's land" between Catholic Croatia and Eastern Orthodox Serbia. While the Norman conquest of Ireland from 1169 was not motivated by Crusading zeal, it was authorised by Pope Adrian IV (d. 1159) to bring the independent Celtic Church under papal control. Crusader privileges were also given to those aiding the Christian Kingdoms of Spain in the Reconquista. Another effect of the more uncompromising and militant form of Christianity was that persecution of minorities became increasingly a feature of European life, especially the Jewish community. With the development of banking in Italy, the role the Jews had carved-out for themselves as money-lenders was no longer indispensable, and state sponsored expulsion of Jews became commonplace, usually as a means of stripping them of their wealth; France in 1254 and 1322, and England in 1290. Yet the Crusades were far from finished with the Eastern Mediterranean. Muslim Egypt was again the objective of the Fifth Crusade (1213-21), which after capturing the port of Damietta became bogged down on an ill-advised attempt to march on Cairo; the army was forced to surrender and leave with nothing. The Sixth Crusade (1228-29) did attempt to regain Jerusalem, but involved very little actual fighting. Instead, the diplomatic maneuvering of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (d. 1250) resulted in an ill-defined authority within the Holy City; the Western representatives were evicted fifteen years later. The Seventh Crusade (1248-54) was the greatest expedition of the 13th-century, led by King Louis IX of France (d. 1270). It followed the same pattern as the Fifth, and similarly achieved nothing, although this time the French had to pay a large ransom for the return of their king. During the 13th-century, the Crusader States desperately clung to their strip of Mediterranean coast, and became increasingly reliant on more and more massive fortifications; the castles of Krak des Chevaliers, Saphet, Chastel Pelerin, and Acre all took their final shape. However by 1250 the political complexion of the Middle East was changing. That year, Saladin's successors in Egypt were displaced by a tough new dynasty, the Mamluk Sultanate (1250-1517) of former slave-soldiers. The Mamlukes clashed with the Mongols, shortly after they captured Damascus in 1259, at the Battle of Ain Jalut (September 1260), with victory going to the Mamelukes; the first major defeat for the Mongols. In this league, there was no room for the few tiny Latin kingdoms. Sultan Baibars (1260-77), a ferocious exponent of holy war, started the process by capturing Antioch in 1268; the massacre and mass enslavement of the population shows that barbarity was not solely the preserve of the Latins. After this, the Crusader strongholds were steadily picked-off one by one; the next Tripoli in 1289, and the last Acre in 1291. The Templars held-out on the tiny island of Arwad off the Syrian coast until 1303. With their departure, the Western Europeans were finally swept from the Middle East, leaving only their mighty castles as silent witnesses to two centuries spent in Palestine and Syria. While the ultimate aim of the Crusading Age ended in failure, it had a profound impact on Western civilisation. The entire structure of European society was changing during the 12th and 13th centuries, and the Crusades was one factor in that development. The most obvious direct beneficiaries were the Maritime Republics, especially the Venetians and Genoese, who virtually monopolised shipping, trade, and banking with the Crusader States. They also extended their trade networks deep into the Muslim world, as well as annexing the commerce of Constantinople, which was sustained long after 1303. Trade generally improved throughout Europe, with these wars creating a constant demand for supplies, as well as the emergence of new tastes such as increased demand for spices, Oriental textiles, and other exotic fare. The transportation the Maritime Republics provided was a significant step in the development of shipbuilding techniques. There was also a heightened interest in travel. The papacy also directly benefited, consolidating her leadership of the Catholic Church, and reinforcing the link between Western Christendom and feudalism. Nevertheless, the Crusades also firmly established the Catholic system of indulgences, one of the major catalysts of the Protestant Reformation of the early 16th century. Some historians speculate that cultural cross-fertilisation from the Byzantine and Islamic worlds during the Crusading Age was a factor in the development of European civilisation, thus paving the way for the Italian Renaissance. If it was a factor, it was certainly secondary in importance to the more positive interactions emanating from Muslim Spain and the hybrid culture of Sicily. Wherever they encountered Islam, Western Europeans found things to admire; new luxuries such as silk clothes, perfumes new dishes, and more frequent baths. This may have been unfortunate, for it added the taint of religious infidelity to the habit of bathing; cleanliness had not yet achieved its later association with godliness. Meanwhile, the Crusades had a marked impact on the development of Western literature, providing a wellspring of source material for stories of heroism, chivalry, piety, and romance. Most of this "literature" was not written down, at least not until later, since literacy in the West remained extremely low; perhaps only 6% in England in 1300. Instead, wandering storytellers, poets and musicians entertained audiences with the stories, such as the French jongleurs. Another important consequence was the re-emergence in the West of systems of taxation, for such campaigns required substantial levels of financial support. The sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade was to live in Orthodox memory as one of infamy, and any reconciliation between Eastern and Western Christendom was now out of the question; it remains today. The impact of the Crusades on relations between Western Christendom and the Islamic world was perhaps more profound, firmly establishing a sense of unbridgeable ideological separation between the two faiths, that still influences political and cultural views today. Category:Historical Periods